Check out this brand new automotive link directory dedicated exclusively to the tire industry, TiresAllKinds.com. The site features up to date news syndicated from popular industry publications, as well as the chance to get your business more exposure by creating a company listing. Listings include information like your business name, Web site, address with map, phone number, and a brief description of your services. Businesses are classified by state in the following categories: Auto Service & Repair, Tire Brokers, Importers/Exporters, Retail Tire Stores, Tire Wholesalers & Distributors, and Miscellaneous.

This new directory is a great chance to get some extra exposure for your company if it falls into any one of these categories. Or, if you’re looking to do business in your area, you can search by zip code to find a company that provides the services you need in the area where you live or work. Want more info about companies? There’s also a basic review and rating system that allows consumers to share their opinions of the company.

Not much action on it right now, but as the site is brand new, we expect traffic to increase nicely in the coming months. Get in while you still can!

Goodyear’s latest tire is simply out of this world – literally! After announcing their collaboration with NASA 2 years ago, Goodyear’s airless “spring tire” performed successfully on the Lunar Electric Test Rover during recent “rock yard” course tests in Houston. The lunar exploration tire uses 800 load bearing springs to carry heavier vehicles over longer distances. Previous lunar vehicles, such as the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle, were equipped with wire mesh tires that did not offer the load-bearing and long-distance capabilities of Goodyear’s new spring tire.

“This tire is extremely durable and extremely energy efficient,” noted Jim Benzing, Goodyear’s lead innovator on the project. “The spring design contours to the surface on which it’s driven to provide traction. But all of the energy used to deform the tire is returned when the springs rebound. It doesn’t generate heat like a normal tire.”

Normal air-filled tires simply would not work very will on the unforgiving lunar surface. Extreme temperatures combined with a constant bombardment of rubber-degrading solar radiation means that normal tires probably wouldn’t last long – hence the need for innovation. With a permanent lunar outpost likely in the coming decades, Goodyear’s new lunar tires provide a dependable way to transport equipment without any risk of deflation or single-point failure. Unlike a normal tire, a puncture to the spring tire would only result in one of the 800 springs being damaged, not the entire tire.

“The tire design seems almost obvious in retrospect, as most good inventions do.”said Vivake Asnani, NASA’s principal investigator at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.